The Best One Yet - 🍺 “Local Lite”— Kelce Bros’ light beer bet. Elf Beauty’s “Dicks”. BuzzFeed’s 1st social media app.

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, February 13th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a tea boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. And a happy Galentine's Day to all those who celebrate. Nick and I, we're celebrating Galentine's Day together this year.

Starting point is 00:00:19 Are we going to Hand of the Wood tonight? We're going to Vermont's premier farm-to-table restaurant. I love that mushroom risotto gets me every time. I'm getting a steak for two. We got to work on our menu stratagem. We've got to be here. We've got to work on that. We've got to work on that. In the meantime, Yetis, we got three fantastic stories for today's show. Stocks are down, but these stories are up. What are we got, Jack? For our first story, every craft brewery in America is launching their version of Bud Light.

Starting point is 00:00:44 Because the fastest growing beer in America defying every alcohol trend is local light beer? Yeah. For our second story, BuzzFeed is launching its own social media app. Because BuzzFeed identified the number one problem with the whole internet. Snarfing. It's snarfing. And our third and final story. Elf Beauty has a campaign to highlight the number of CEOs named Richard, Rick, or Rich. And what do they call it, Jack?

Starting point is 00:01:11 So many dicks. So many dicks. So many dicks is a case study in customer engagement. But Yeti's, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories. And I'm in on the steak. Let's do the steak. We're doing the steak?

Starting point is 00:01:24 What the heck? We're dropping the risotto? It's a right off. We'll get the hand of the wood toast for an appetizer. If you know, you know. But Yeties, the most popular. gift on Valentine's Day is the bouquet. The bouquet, an attractively arranged bunch of flowers presented as a gift. A bouquet of roses, red or white, a bouquet of gardenias. In fact, tomorrow,

Starting point is 00:01:43 22% of Americans will buy a bouquet on Valentine's Day. But Nick and I have noticed a new trend emerging, bouquets with no flowers. We're talking bouquets with anything but the flowers. We call them faux-cais. Yeah, faux-kays, fake bouquets. And it turns out there is a whole economy, we've discovered of faux bouquets. If there was a male version of Galentine's Day, you'd get the fried chicken bouquet, which is a thing. Or you would get your partner a Lego bouquet, which is also a thing.

Starting point is 00:02:12 There's donut bouquets, salami bouquets. Honest Company sells a diaper bouquet. For expectant moms. Disney sells a Star Wars bouquet. Filled with lightsabers for your lover. Because Jack, anything bundled in a triangulally shaped arrangement, what is it? Technically, that's a bouquet.

Starting point is 00:02:29 Whether it's a dozen roses or a... A dozen garden hoses. Technically, they're bouquet. So, Yetis, you got 24 hours from Valentine's Day. And do you still need a gift? Get her a beef jerky bouquet. A dozen slim gyms wrapped in a red bow with a card. 60% of the time, it works every time.

Starting point is 00:02:48 Jack, let's in our three stories. 15 years before this song. Two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an norm. Jack Nick, that's a good. I don't even think they need to practice. 50% that's a fat tip.

Starting point is 00:03:05 Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more. So just start the show. Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor. Our first story. The Kelsey brothers are taken on Bud Light with their own beer brand.

Starting point is 00:03:34 Because the fastest growing beer flavor in America is the easiest recipe in all of alcohol. Light beers. Yeties, Two years ago, Jack and I did a story on the craft beer collapse. Craft beer, it simply went flat. There was simply too many craft breweries across America and too many IPAs. Yeah, and honestly, the real issue here was you got flavor fatigue. Consumers got flavor fatigue. Because there's a fine line between a heavy IPA and a pint of soup. Jack would hand me like a quadruple IPA a few years ago and it was like split pea black bean pale ale. It used to be all that I would drink. Yeah,

Starting point is 00:04:10 but now I just physically can't handle it. Kraft beers were so dense, I choked on one, Jack. I needed the heimlich. Okay. And in response to IPA overload, many are pivoting back to their college beer of choice. Light beer. And with Bud Light having a brand crisis, Madello and Cores are enjoying a light beer sales bump. But now, craft breweries are pivoting to make their own take on light beer.

Starting point is 00:04:34 Yeah, and this is the news. These microbrews are beating the macro breweries in the light beer category. Get this. The best performing beer category in America last year was local light beer. Let that sink in local light beer. We're talking small regional craft takes on American Light Lager as the category's called. American Light Lager. It's light yellow color.

Starting point is 00:04:58 It tastes like water. And it is highly, highly chuggable. Now, the revenue of Kraft Light Beer is up 54% in the fourth quarter of last year. That is by far the best performing type of beer. Again, pause the pod, sit down, stand up, and pass us another one. We've been covering the fall of alcohol for like two years now. And the fall of beer specifically. And yet craft light beer is up 54%.

Starting point is 00:05:23 That's why the hot new celebrity trend isn't launching a canned coffee company. It's launching a light craft beer. For example, Hulk Hogan launched real American light beer down in Florida. It's draped in an American flag. Troy Aikman launched Elite 8 light beer down in Texas. It's got a slim can, like it's a Red Bull or something. Feels like a Diet Coke. And the Kelsey Brothers of the NFL bought an entire light beer brand.

Starting point is 00:05:49 They bought garage beer in Ohio. And sales of that Ohio-based brand are up 500% since the Kelsey Brothers got it. They actually record their podcast for like a 30 rack like it's Miller Light. But it's local light. It's local light. Besties from Colorado to Vermont to every college town in America. Craft breweries are launching new light beers. It's a Bud Light Knockoff.

Starting point is 00:06:10 because it's so easy to knock off Bud Light. Yeah. The recipe is barley, hops, rice, and a lot of water. Bud Light Dup. So, Besties, you are now buying 54% more light beer than you did last year, but you're not buying bud or course. You're buying local light. Which actually, I wouldn't call a dupe because it's typically more expensive than Bud Light.

Starting point is 00:06:30 All I know, Jack, is they put fewer hops in it. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are actually drinking beer? Life is full of graduation moments. So be the graduation gift. Yeties, as people hit life milestones, each transition is also a transition into a new buying habit. Smart businesses recognize those moments and serve a product for them. Well, in this case, that life moment is millennial dads, dad lenials, men hitting 30 having kids. From experience, we can tell you that after you hit your 30s, it's scientifically harder to consume and process heavier beers. Honestly, this is scientifically proven. having a kid, your metabolism struggles with a 6.8% alcoholic quadruple IPA.

Starting point is 00:07:14 So craft beer is growing with its millennial dad customers by offering them 100 calorie light lagers that won't knock them out. So besties, the transition of millennial men from frat bros to dad lennials is a graduation moment. And the craft beer industry capitalized on it with a graduation gift. A 12 pack of light local logger. Let's be honest, a four pack. For our second story, BuzzFeed is launching a new social media platform to make the internet fun again.

Starting point is 00:07:51 Jonah Peretti has identified the big problem with the internet. And what's it called, Jack? Snarf. And it's wildly accurate, in our opinion. Why are we doing this? Because the internet is broken. That's a quote from a new manifesto posted by BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti. Jack and I actually got to interview Jonah Preddy back in 2022. We did a whole interview on the founding of BuzzFeed, Jonah, media. It was great. He's an early pioneer of internet culture. He knows the formula for virality. Yeah, that's why you always saw those BuzzFeed articles like 14 mind-blowing Disney princess facts from the 1990s. I'm definitely clicking on that. Oh, one sec, Jack. If you answer these 18 questions, we'll tell you what kind of taco you are. That's when the internet was fun, right? Pineapple taco. Okay.

Starting point is 00:08:41 Hey, interesting. Here's the thing. Jonah Pready hates what's happened to the internet, and he hates what goes viral these days. So, wild announcement. But he and BuzzFeed are launching a new social media app name TBD. They haven't named it yet. We're calling it BuzzTagram.

Starting point is 00:08:58 No, we should clarify it. BuzzFeed is not launching this from a position of strength. No, BuzzFeed's in a desperate position right now. The stock is down 95%. It's only two bucks a share. And they recently sold their YouTube show, Hot Ones, to raise some badly needed cash to repay debt. They don't want that going viral.

Starting point is 00:09:16 But Jonah Paredi is a very smart guy, and we think he has perfectly described what is going on with the internet with one single phrase. Well, he says that TikTok and meta employees don't actually run TikTok and meta. Honestly, their algorithms do. Yeah, he describes a deep learning black box

Starting point is 00:09:35 that decides what videos we actually see next. And basically, if you work at those companies, you don't know what's in the box. the world has discovered what the algorithm rewards. And the type of content that does well on social media today, he calls it snarf. Snarf, Jack, could you sprinkle on a definition to the acronym SNARF? Snarf stands for stakes, novelty, anger, retention, and fear. Content creators exaggerate stakes to make their content urgent and existential. They manufacture novelty and spin their content as unprecedented and unique. They manipulate anger to

Starting point is 00:10:11 drive engagement via outrage. They hack retention by withholding information and promising a payoff at the end of a video. And finally, they provoke fear to make people focus with urgency on their content. Honestly, Jonah just nailed it. That explains pretty much all the content you see online right now. As guys who create content every day, we can tell you that is 100% the formula that everyone posting online tries to follow. We do a video on tariffs, it doesn't go viral.

Starting point is 00:10:38 You do a video on a mango recipe for a smooth. and why if you don't, you eat this mango, you're going to die in three years, you're going viral. Yeah, you see videos like, I can't believe what I just discovered. A city is about to get destroyed by a hurricane. Watch to the end of the video to find out what city. Stock market will crash just after these messages. They're annoying, but you're probably watching to the end of that video. So Jonah is trying to create a social media platform that doesn't do any of that. An anti-snarf social media app. But we think that solution faces an uphill battle because of our takeaway. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies building a social media app at BuzzFeed? The negativity bias.

Starting point is 00:11:21 That is what prevents the internet from being fun. Yeti's Jonah Paredi claims that BuzzFeed's new social media app will be built specifically to spread joy. It will be designed as an oasis from the algorithm-driven doom scrolling. But Jack, what's the problem? with that. We humans dooms scroll because we have a bias for negativity. Yeah, case and point, it's what we notice with the news when we covered every day, Jack. This is our favorite example. How many articles have you seen published about gasoline prices being low? None. None, none, none, none. But if gasoline prices go up, you'll see tons of articles about how expensive gasoline is. And the reason for that is that we humans don't click on the positive headline, we click on the

Starting point is 00:12:03 negative headline. And that is why SNARF succeeds. Deep in our brain, we're brains, we have a bias for clicking negative things. Jack and I have researched this, and there's actually an evolutionary reason for that. We are primed to prepare for threats that may hurt us, so we focus on negativity. Now, we commend Jonah for fighting this battle. Oh, totally, Jack. His new BuzzFeed social media app will be designed for, and we quote, creativity and connection, not addiction. If you can name it, you can start to tame it. And he and BuzzFeed are trying to tame our negativity bias. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, Elf Beauty says that corporate America has so many dicks,

Starting point is 00:12:49 referring to the number of board members named Richard, Rick, or Rich in business. Risky move in today's political climate. Yeah. But elf customers loved it and will explain why. E-L-F Beauty. Elf Beauty stands for eyes, lips, and face. They're famous for their inflation-proof $3 lips. Yeah, it's always been $3.00.

Starting point is 00:13:11 They were founded by a father and son team who tried to sell affordable makeup online. Honestly, their skin cream is so cheap. It is too cheap to sell at Sephora. Now, if you look at the financials, the stock has been down in the last year, but they're still on a streak of 23 straight quarters of growth. So Elf is now worth $4 billion on your eyebrows. How did they become such a big deal? It started in 2019. When they created a song just for TikTok, it was called the Eyes, Lips, and Face song. And that hashtag challenge got two billion views. In 2021, they created burrito makeup in a partnership with Chipotle. Yeah, you could wear barbacoa on your eyebrows and that's sold out.

Starting point is 00:13:49 What we're saying is this company's very good at going viral for good reasons. Well, the latest way they've gone viral is so many dicks. This is a campaign to highlight lack of diversity on corporate boards. To clarify, the dicks are men named Richard, Rich, or Rick who sit on corporate boards. And there are so many dicks. Yeah, like the data, Elfair. is that there are actually two times more men named a dick than there are Hispanic women on these boards.

Starting point is 00:14:17 And black and Asian women barely outnumbered the dicks on corporate boards in America. But Jack, let's sprinkle on some context here. What do we got, man? Now, Elf's not the only company that's noticed homogeneity in our corporate boardrooms. In 2020, Goldman Sachs announced a new rule for companies that wanted to go public.

Starting point is 00:14:34 If you wanted Goldman Sachs to lead your IPO, since 2020, you must have at least one diverse board member. Well, Goldman was, like Elf, responding to the fact that there are simply so many dicks in business. But this week, Goldman announced it's canceling that requirement, and that is part of a trend. Because, as you've probably seen, dozens of corporations have rolled back their DEI initiatives. From Meta to McDonald's to Target to Ford, every day we see three or four companies that are doing this. But interestingly, Elf Beauty, on the other hand, they're not canceling their wildly intense so many dicks observation, are they? No. In fact, the CEO just...

Starting point is 00:15:10 said in an interview with Fortune Magazine that they have aligned their workforce to be just like their customer base. Yeah, Elf is one of the few examples where we've seen data on this, but 74% of their team are women, 75% of their team are Gen Z or millennials, and 44% are diverse just like Elf beauty buyers. It's actually parody. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are anyone trying to generate brand love? Every now and then, you got to serve them some red meat. When we select our three fantastic stories each day for this podcast, Jack and I say it's like we're going to a market, like we're chefs trying to pick out food from a market. We want the perfect mix to make a great meal.

Starting point is 00:15:53 So we do a mix of industries, topics, and takeaways. That'll just be delicious. But in crafting content, we also know there's a role for red meat, material for our most hardcore fans. Red meat is the most intense expression of what your brand stands for. Yeah, we did that this week. like when we wrote a poem about how Peloton stock broke our hearts. That was red meat for our listeners. And when Elf Beauty did a Dix campaign about diversity,

Starting point is 00:16:17 that was red meat for its Gen Z women customers. Because great brands always make space for their most committed fans. So every now and then, you got to serve them some red meat. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for that new Friday? The craft brewery near you probably has launched their own version of Bud Light. Because as millennial men become daddalenials, they're graduating from IPAs to local lights. For our second story,

Starting point is 00:16:43 Jonah Peretti and BuzzFeed are building a new positive social media app that is anti-snarf. The force he's fighting is the negativity bias because humans will watch anything online if it's negative. And finally, elf beauty's so many dicks campaign is red meat for their Gen Z female customer base. Red meat, it's what you got to do

Starting point is 00:17:02 if you're trying to generate some brand love. But Yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, we just got the celebrity of monthly economic reports, the inflation report. The Consumer Price Index showed that prices in February increased by 3% compared to last year, which is the highest pace since June. Egg prices search 15% month over month, and that's the eggflation situation. And as long as inflation is rising, interest rates will not be coming down.

Starting point is 00:17:31 And second, a guy who threw away $700 million worth of Bitcoin by accident is trying to buy the landfill that it's stuck in. His name's James Howells. He's a British IT worker who mined 7,500 Bitcoin way back in 2009. Okay, but here's a problem. He accidentally threw away the thumb drive with the key to access all those Bitcoin. So now he's trying to buy the local landfill, but locals worry that opening it up is going to contaminate the air in the water. Let him do it. Just let him do it. We'll invest in it. I want to piece of that action. Can you invest in this operation? We're in James. We're in. And finally, the rocket Hall of Fame announced 14 nominees for the 2025 induction class. They include Mariah Carey,

Starting point is 00:18:13 Outcast, and Fish. Fish, perfect timing, Jack. Fish. The Vermont-based jam band is the co-star of our latest episode of The Best Idea Yet. If you haven't listened yet, we just did a whole deep dive episode on Ben and Jerry's and their fish food ice cream. So if you don't know anything about fish, oh yeah. And if you love ice cream, it's good. This episode is perfect for you. Link in episode description. Nick and I, by the way, We're listening to that episode on the way to dinner tonight. Yeah, I can't wait. Now, time for the best fact yet.

Starting point is 00:18:44 This one sent in by Jack's brother. I got to say, his funniest brother, Tuck. All right, here's the question, Eric. Well, actually, this is the preview question. What's the most successful college football program of all time? Okay, that would be the University of Alabama roll-tied. Arguably, but it's pretty much Alabama. Well, here's the wild fact.

Starting point is 00:19:02 No NFL player drafted from Alabama had ever scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl until this Super Bowl. That's right. It took 59 years for a University of Alabama player to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Devante Smith had a 46-yard touchdown catch, and it was the first ever by someone drafted from Alabama. Joe Namath didn't score a touchdown.

Starting point is 00:19:22 Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, never scored a Super Bowl touchdown. Bart Starr, not even sure who he is, but he threw a Super Bowl touchdown. That's not the same as scoring one. Good point check. Congrats, Alabama. You're welcome to all the sports fans

Starting point is 00:19:35 who are about to text this to all their other sports fan buddies. Yetis, you'll look fantastic today. And remember, you've got 24 hours to buy them a foeke or a chaos bouquet or any kind of alternative bouquet you got going on. I'm thinking like 12 brotvers would be a pretty big turn on for me. You want a Brock bouquet? All right.

Starting point is 00:19:56 Let's see what we can do, Yeties. Alex, I hope you're listening. Besties, thanks for enjoying the show. One of the best ways you can help grow the pod is to drop down and give us a five-star review and tap to follow. us so you get T-Boy every day. Nick and I, we'll see it tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, a happy 30-second birthday to legendary Yeti, Harvin Vala Bananii, over in Atlanta. And happy birthday to Melissa Robinette in Corona, California. This biology teacher at Saddleback

Starting point is 00:20:28 High School is the birthday girl. And Skyler Fried out of Naples, Florida, is going to eat chocolate for three meals a day celebrating a birthday. Celebrating a Valentine's Day. Not too shabby. And congratulations to Nick Jordan from Buffalo, New York, whose parents conceived him on Valentine's Day decades ago. Valentine's Week, but we'll round up for you on that one, Nick. Cotia with the Brat versus bouquet. Yeah, I think that is totally good. I said it's a turn on. We like literally never crossed the line in this episode, but we were licking that line, Jack. We were licking it.

The Best One Yet - 🍺 “Local Lite”— Kelce Bros’ light beer bet. Elf Beauty’s “Dicks”. BuzzFeed’s 1st social media app.

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